People like Dane Cook because he's a popular myspace personality. People go to his shows feeling as if he's someone they know. Why they'd want to know him anyway is beyond me. I've never heard anything come out of his mouth that even made me grin, nevertheless atually laugh. On Tourgasm the only some-time funny guys were Robert Kelly and Gary Gulman.

...it's not surprising that Dane Cook is huge. Cook, like Farrel, is not the least bit funny. Cook, like Farrel, is actively annoying.

I think Cook's appeal comes from his very blandness. In stupid times, stupid people end up making it big. It's not fair, but it's true.

... to do a college circuit tour, use junior high school humour and get tremendous rounds of applause. Dane cook appeals to very young, immature males. All you have to do is say the word, "fart" into a microphone and they react as if it's the funniest thing they've ever heard.

Dane Cook is not the hottest comedian in years. He is a frat boy, wrapped up in Junior High humour, and is 1) a benefactor of good timing (and nothing more) and 2) a huge indicator on how our culture has been dumbed down to the point of retardation.

No wonder the rest of the world hates us.

that HBO makes enough money off the mediocrity/mass appeal of Dane Cook to reinvest in the quality programming that they built their reputation on.

In a word: cultural entropy.

Ok,Ok... Two words.

Havrilesky misses the point. The man is funny and perhaps more importantly incredibly charismatic. I barely knew who Cook was when Tourgasm began airing and while I thought it was not a great show, it was appealing enough to keep me interested. I did hear some of Retaliation and thought that too was hilarious. He possesses a unusual stlye of annunciation that I found mesmerizing in itself even when I was laughing. Is he the best comedian in years? Ha! What a gloriously stupid question! Why even debate such silliness? Performance is utterly subjective. How funny he is, whom he caters to, why HBO is bankrolling him are really beside the point if you don't like him, or if you do. Granted, the lines Havrilesky quotes at the beginning of her piece are embarrassingly bad. It may signal a decline in Cook's material, maybe a slump. I'll watch Vicious Circle and hopefully I'll like it. But to label him a frat boy as a means of getting us to join Havrilesky in despising him is manipulative and pathetic. I expect smarter criticism from Salon.

I thought it was just me. I'd heard how insanely popular Cook was, and I was really excited to see him for the first time. He struck me as being about as funny as one of the guys you see on those Comedy Central standup showcase shows, only with lots of energy. By which I mean he was hyper and jittery while delivering decidedly average comedy club material. I thought maybe my expectations were too high, but now I think I got it about right. At least I never blew fifteen bucks on the CD. I thought he seemed like an inoffensive future sitcom star, but "leaving my name in the history books"... "the one gift that God has given me"....?

I'd say eleven minutes, twenty-two seconds and counting. Invest that money well, Young Dane. You don't want to wind up on Surreal World--or worse, Celebrity Fatties--five years from now.

I have yet to see any mention of Dane Cook being funny in any circles that I frequent (Internet or real life). I heard about him when I saw promos for his Tourgasm show after watching various other more appealing HBO shows. I watched one of the shows and I'm afraid nothing really registered as funny to me. I've seen funny comedians (pretty much any of the ones that Heather listed out in her article) and Dane Cook and his cohorts just aren't really doing it.

Perhaps I've just missed the funny stuff, but I see no reason to seek it out. If it's really good people will eventually filter it back to me.

I was also wondering at first if it was just me.

Before I watched Tourgasm I hadn't seen much of Cook but I didn't set the bar high- I wasn't looking for him to be as brilliant as Izzard, as tuned-in as Attell, as intelligent as Oswalt. I hoped Cook would be at least a wee fraction as funny as the hype promised. You know- I really can't believe how profoundly unfunny he is. Not just that- but he can be downright cringe-worthy, most specifically on Tourgasm.

A friend of mine said the only way he enjoyed Tourgasm at all was to think of it as a comedic Spinal Tap. A novel idea, but frankly- that didn't even work for me.

Oh- and Cook and Simpson? There you have it. What more can be said?

Don't even get me started on how we're bombarded with Cook's no-talent histrionics while one of the most amazing shows in the history of transmitted images- Deadwood- is relegated to some half-assed programming closure. I give up.

Once again, Heather proves why she's one of my favorite writers on Salon. She always calls 'em like she sees 'em, and sometimes her columns are way funnier than the material of Dane Cook. I'm thinking in particular of a review from I think about a year ago, written in the manner of a Deadwood script.

The only thing I disagree with her about in this review is the part where she says that with Cook, you are always in on the joke. I've seen bits of his act twice on TV now and it is most assuredly banal and mundane. The audience was going nuts, but I have no idea why. Perhaps they are misting the air with some kind of pheremones, but in the comfort of my home I was most definitely not in on the - for lack of a better word - joke.

Ah well, his time too shall pass.